Simu Liu explains why he auditioned for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie
Liu's agent called Gerwig's Barbie script the best he'd ever read
Aux News Barbie
There’s a reason everyone in Hollywood is signing up for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. In a new interview with GQ, Simu Liu revealed his own involvement was all due to the strength of the script, which an agent recommended as one of the best he’d ever read.
The Marvel hero explained that while on a group call with his entire team of representatives, a “junior agent” chimed in to advocate for Barbie. “He literally said this verbatim,” Liu told the outlet. “He was like, ‘If I could stake my career on any one script, it’s the Barbie script. I really think you should do it.’”
Liu clearly heeded the advice, submitting a self-taped audition (as did everyone else in the star-studded cast besides Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling). When he later met the director in person, he recalled, “Greta was talking about how much she loved watching men dance, because it’s such an expression of artistry you’re not used to seeing from typical men.”
When Liu shared that he had been on a competitive hip-hop dance team in college, Gerwig “audibly guffawed, she giggle-screamed—and then I got the part.”
He called making Gerwig laugh on set “the best feeling in the world,” adding: “If you’re an asshole on a Greta Gerwig set, there’s no hope for you.” However, he kept mum on details about the movie and his role. The Shang-Chi star said only that the movie is “wild” and “incredibly unique.” He teased: “I wish I could just show you what we do day to day because it’s crazy.”
He did confirm one crucial detail for GQ: though the film isn’t a musical, Liu will be employing those dance skills. Barbie is shaping up to be quite the spectacle!
27 Comments
Also money. The prospect of lots of money.
I don’t think Barbie is paying Marvel money.
There apparently is going to be a Hot Wheels movie from (sigh) J.J. Abrams. So that means there is going to be another MCU — the Mattel Cinematic Universe.
There was already a Hot Wheels movie:
She’s paying in Barbie Bonds!
why do you think Barbie has like 500 jobs? cus Mattel pays her well? pfft
A Barbie movie with the best script his agent has ever read. I’ve been thinking there’s no way a Barbie film can be anything but a 16% RT disaster. But maybe not
I still have money on the animated movies being better than whatever this ends up being. The best we can hope for is Clueless: 2024. Most likely it’ll be some cynical piece that entirely misses the point of the character’s longevity.
Have you seen Little Women?
I have. And I loved it. Little Women is also hailed as a proto-feminist novel in many circles for how it reveals the interior lives of women during the age. Making it for modern audiences isn’t that hard. Barbie is thought of in an unfortunately different light.
I just feel that Gerwig slammed that out of the park hard enough that I’m willing to trust her with this. Plus Margot Robbie’s good in everything too.
I think we’re talking past each other. The issue isn’t whether the movie will be technically good. The question is the content of the story and the attitude it takes towards the material.
I like Greta Gerwig stuff but does she seriously considers men dancing this new thing? Woof. Call Greta Gerwig because I’m a man and I’m about to cook dinner. I’m sure she’ll shit her pants about it.
I’m also a trained ballet dancer. It’s not weird.
To be clear, the double standard is that I wouldn’t question a woman wanting to be a police officer. So why is it still in 2022 weird for men to participate in what is construed as “female hobbies” for fucks sake. Double standard alert.
The problem is in the rareness of male dancing in western popular art (especially white western popular art), not its general existence, or the folks who note its rareness in the media and actually make an effort for it to appear more often.
Because beyond adaptations of stage musicals and Magic Mike (a fairly limited and specific expression), I’m struggling to actually think of it actually appearing in popular culture all that often, beyond, say, men being danced around in romantic comedies or it being done for comedy’s sake in other types of comedies.
Because, yeah, LOTS of female police officers out there in the media. But is there anything CLOSE to a male Bring It On? No? And more to the point, is the person you’re mad at a director/producer actually recognizing that lack and trying to give male dancers more roles?
Greta Gerwig is NOTING the double standard and doing something about it, not promulgating it. Gene Kelly and Gregory Hines have been dead a while, friend. This ain’t Bollywood.
But is there anything CLOSE to a male Bring It On?You Got Served and Stomp the Yardboth were released after Bring It On, and Stomp the Yard did rather good at the box office considering its “mainstream” appeal is much, much lower than Bring It On (being a movie starring mostly black actors portraying both a niche style of dance, and a niche element of black college life, unlike the more mainstream popularity of cheerleading).
Also, the first Step Up movie was released between them, giving Channing Tatum his big break and actually having a higher box office than Bring It On. If anything, what is shows is that movies that show male dancing make money so long as the dancing is particularly tied to hip-hop, rap, or dance styles most prominent in black culture, rather than dancing styles more associated with various white cultures, presumably because those dance styles are often relegated to the realm of Broadway and musical theater, which haven’t been particularly popular in the mainstream movie market unless its a remake or adaptation of an already-popular work of art.
Li Cunxin and Bruce Beresford would disagree.
Damn dude, you’re projecting quite a bit. I’m guessing you’ve gotten shit as a ballet dancer but no one here is calling male dancers weird except for you. I read it as Gerwig admiring male dancers and wishing that kind of artistic expression was more common amongst men.
Nor does she say it’s “Weird.”
“Greta was talking about how much she loved watching men dance, because
it’s such an expression of artistry you’re not used to seeing from
typical men.”
Read the quote again. She doesn’t say it’s “new.” She says it’s underrepresented.
Her fault for not looking hard enough, IMHO.
There is literally no way on earth this movie will live up to the hype we’ve already seen.
I mean, Little Women was DAMN good so I’m trusting Gerwig here.
What the hell is happening in this script that everyone is tripping over themselves to be in the Barbie movie?
This is either going to be a mind-blower (or at least a Lego Movie level happy surprise) or Cats II.
damn even for av club the comments here are cynical! gerwig rules.
This is a weird concept for an article. Why did a successful but by no means A-List actor audition for a movie being made by the director of one of the best, most critically successful films of the last five years? Do we really need six paragraphs to answer this question?